Antibalas

Antibalas performing in 2005.
Image: "Rich Andersson" on flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0. Source.

Summary

Antibalas is a Brooklyn ensemble associated with Afrobeat. Its large-band dance music developed in local party and protest settings and became part of the genre's international performance network.

History

Saxophonist Martín Perna founded the group in 1998. Early personnel overlapped with the musicians around Desco and Daptone; after Talkatif (2002), touring increasingly carried the ensemble beyond New York. The band's history connects neighborhood musical organization with a much wider concert circuit.

Music and repertoire

The ensemble works within the Afrobeat lineage associated with Fela Kuti, using interlocking rhythm-section parts and horn writing as a framework for dance and vocal address. Its Brooklyn setting is an adopted musical community rather than a Nigerian place of origin. Fu Chronicles (2020), Where the Gods Are in Peace (2017) and Hourglass (2025) document successive periods of the recording catalogue.

Members and collaborators

Perna's saxophone and organizing role were foundational. Earlier contributors include Gabriel Roth, Binky Griptite, Victor Axelrod and Nick Movshon. Duke Amayo became a central percussionist and frontman before leaving in 2021. These are historical roles within a changing large ensemble, not a claim that all those musicians appear on every recording.